Afonso de Castro

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Afonso de Castro (born January 11, 1824 in Lamego , Portugal , † 1885 in Leiria , Portugal) was a Portuguese officer, journalist, diplomat and colonial administrator. He was a member of the Geographical Society of Lisbon , the Society of Science and Arts of Batavia and the Vasco da Gama Institute in Goa .

Living in Portugal

In 1842 Castro graduated from military school and became a soldier in the infantry . Then he went to the polytechnic school. In 1845 Castro became an ensign and began his service in Bragança in 1846 . In October 1846 he was in Porto , where an anti - Setembrist government was constituted against the Cartist government under the Duke of Saldanha . Castro joined the uprising and became an adjutant in the junta's war ministry . The uprising was put down by foreign aid to Queen Maria II . A Spanish army captured Porto on June 30, 1847. Castro served as a negotiator at the time, who also brought the Gramido Convention which ended the uprising.

Until the beginning of 1851 Castro lived in Canaveses with his brother Macario de Castro , then he moved to his brother Henrique de Castro , who was studying at the university in Coimbra . That year the army rebelled under the Duke of Saldanha, who now sided with the Setembrists. Castro became a member of the Jägererkorps, but had to fight against much resistance within his troops due to his participation in the junta of Porto, so that he left them before the victory of the rebels in Lisbon. Castro now worked as a journalist for various newspapers, such as the Esperança . After the adjustment, he founded together with Teixeira de Vasconcelos , the O Arauto .

Portuguese Timor

In 1854 Castro was elected MP for Portuguese Timor and was appointed governor on September 8, 1858. He did not take office until April 29, 1859, since he had previously worked as secretary in the diplomatic negotiations with the Netherlands on the Treaty of Lisbon (1859) . In this treaty the demarcation between the two colonial powers on the Lesser Sunda Islands was established.

Castro was governor of Portuguese Timor until April 1863 . During this time the rebellion of 1861 fell , in which the Timorese empires of Laclo and Ulmera rose independently of one another against the Portuguese colonial power. At times even the capital Dili was threatened, and Castro had to ask for support from the neighboring Dutch colonies on the Moluccas .

After the Timorese rebels were defeated, Castro had traditional Timorese victory celebrations held in Dili, at which the severed heads of the enemies were presented. Castro later wrote of the rebellion: "One must use coercion, not to tyrannize, but to obey the law and to force a lazy people to work."

In order to increase the yield from the colony, Castro had a large number of new coffee plantations built. As early as 1860 he was the first to divide the 47 Timorese small empires of the colony into ten military commanderships ( comandos militares ), each of which he subordinated to an administrator ( administrador ), and established military posts in each commandanthouse in order to weaken the previous relative independence of the local rulers . In 1863, the command office Oecussi was created for the Portuguese exclave in West Timor with its two kingdoms, Oecussi and Ambeno . The first complete trade and budget balance in Portuguese Timor can also be traced back to Castro.

The time after Timor

Back in Lisbon, Castro worked in the Ministry of the Navy. In 1865 Castro married Dona Virgínia Cañete y Moral , the daughter of the Spanish consul in Lisbon. From August of the same year to the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies in 1868, Castro was a member of Moimenta da Beira . As civil governor , he was sent to Madeira in May 1870 , but was dismissed just eight days later because the Duke of Saldanha launched a coup and formed a new cabinet in Lisbon. Castro voluntarily retired as a lieutenant colonel and lived with his family in Lagos on his father-in-law's estate. From 1877 to 1879 Castro was again civil governor of Madeira and from 1881 to 1883 civil governor of the Angra do Heroísmo district in the Azores . For health reasons, Castro returned to Lagos and finally moved to Leiria , where he died in 1885.

Publications

Castro wrote various articles about his travels to the Moluccas, Celebes , Java and into the interior of Timor . He published one of the first descriptions of Timor under the title As Possessões Portuguesas na Oceania (Lisbon 1867), which also contained a list of the 47 small empires in the east of the island. In it he complains:
“Of all our possessions, the least known is undoubtedly Timor. Little or nothing has been written about that colony, and if we consult the archives of the Navy Department, we are as smart afterwards as we were before. "

Other articles from Castro include:

  • Une rebellion à Timor, Batavia 1860.
  • Memorias sobre Timor

Awards

Castro received the following awards for his services:

Castro received a silver medal for his military merits and his achievements in Timor.

supporting documents

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Biográfico MP 1834–1910. Vol AC. Direcção de Maria Filomena Mónica, Ed da Assembleia da República, Lisboa 2004, ISBN 972-671-120-7 , pp. 725-727.
  2. ↑ Luis Filipe Thomas, DE CEUTA A TIMOR ( Memento of February 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ TIMOR LORO SAE, Um pouco de história ( Memento of November 13, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ East Timor - PORTUGUESE DEPENDENCY OF EAST TIMOR ( Memento of July 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
predecessor Office successor
Luís Augusto de Almeida Macedo Governor of Portuguese Timor
April 29, 1859–1861 		Duarte João Cabeira (in charge)
Duarte João Cabeira (in charge) Governor of Portuguese Timor
1862–1863 		José Manuel Pereira de Almeida
personal data
SURNAME Castro, Afonso de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Castro, Affonso de (historical spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese governor of Portuguese Timor
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Lamego , Portugal
DATE OF DEATH 1885
Place of death Leiria , Portugal